Making Leaded Stained Glass

Simple Instructions For Making Leaded Stained Glass

This is where making leaded stained glass really gets exciting! Once you have cut all your glass pieces out, the next step is to join them together using stained glass lead came. Students of my online lead came course really enjoyed the leading up process. The lead comes in 6 foot lengths or on a spool. It can either be flat or rounded and comes in different widths, the most common being from 5/64″ to 1/2″ wide.

Some lead is hard and some is softer and more pliable. It might be worth checking before you buy as the hard lead is tricky to cut and shape for beginners.

Leading up is one of the trickiest things to learn, so take your time and be patient. It’s more than worth it! Leading up is the point in the stained glass making process where you start to see your panel beginning to take shape and looking like a real stained glass window.

Making Leaded Stained Glass Panels

1. How To Stretch And Open Up The Lead Came

When you first get your lead came it is floppy and bends all over the place. To make it stronger and easier to use it has to be stretched, unless you purchase pre-stretched lead available in north America.

How do you stretch lead came?

Place the end of the lead into the jaws of the stretcher and hold the other end with the pliers.

Make sure you’re standing with one leg behind the other and pull the came with little sharp tugs until you can’t feel any more ‘give’.

Carefully place the lead came on a table. Using the fat end of the fid, run it inside both channels of the lead. This opens it up so that you can fit the putty in easily later.

Came in lead stretcher and opening up lead with fid

2. Preparing The Leading Up Board

Tape your pattern flat onto a piece of board, leaving about 3″ around each edge.

Before you make your jig with the first 2 wooden batons, make sure you leave room for the outside leaf of the lead came (see photo below). Your glass will not fit the pattern if you don’t do this.

Use the set square to make sure the wood is at right angles.

Nailing the jig in the correct place

3. Cutting The Border Lead

When making leaded stained glass, the first pieces of stained glass lead came to cut are the edge vertical and horizontal ones.

Mark the angle you want to cut across the top of the lead with the lead knife or a pen.

Then push the lead knife gently and vertically through the top flange, rocking it from side to side to make sure you don’t squash the lead. If you are using lead nippers, simply line them up with your mark and cut through the came.

Use a scrap of your border came to work out what length to cut these leads.

Once you’ve got the outside leads in you can put your first piece of glass in.

Marking the angle before cuttingCutting came with a lead knife (left) and nippers (right)

4. Leading Up The Panel

The internal leads used for leaded panels are most commonly 3/16″ (5mm) or 1/4″ (6mm). Any wider and they start to look too dominant and hide the glass. You can use different widths in the same piece to make part of it stand out if you like.

Stretch and open the channels of the internal leads as before.

Work out and mark the angle at which one lead meets the other before cutting.

Cut the leads a little shorter than the glass, to make room for the flange it’s butting up against. You can use a scrap piece of came as a gauge to help determine how short it has to be.

Cutting the leads the right length

Some angles are more difficult than others. Long, thin ones are the most tricky, as it’s easy to squash them.

The most difficult angles to cutHow to cut long thin angles

5. Holding It All In Place

As you start fitting more and more pieces, you’ll find that making leaded stained glass requires at least 4 hands! The pieces want to keep popping out all over the place.

Use horseshoe nails banged into little pieces of scrap lead to keep everything firmly in place.

Build up the glass pieces diagonally from the left hand corner of your board if you’re right-handed.

You can run the lead along more than one piece of glass to reduce the amount of lead shaping needed but be aware that leads that go from one side to another create a natural fold point. Avoid this by cutting the lead and intersecting with a perpendicular lead. This makes for a stronger panel.

6. Making Sure The Panel Is The Right Size

Keep checking that you’re sticking to your pattern.

Don’t panic if your panel is getting bigger, this often happens. Be prepared to dismantle your leaded panel to check where things aren’t fitting. It’s easy to re-assemble once the leads are cut and shaped.

Be aware that more often than not it is the lead came that’s too long and needs cutting to make the pieces fit, rather than the glass that’s too big so double check that constantly. If the glass was cut accurately and fitted before you started leading up, it shouldn’t need too much grinding.

7. Cutting The Final Leads

Carefully rest the came along the edge of your panel to see what length you need.

Measure, mark and cut the vertical lead, making sure you leave room for the horizontal one.

Repeat for the horizontal lead.

Measuring the border lead

Now nail in the two remaining batons, checking they are at right anges and that the panel is the correct size.

Using the set square to check right anglesLeaded panel ready for soldering

Helpful Resources

Here’s a useful short video showing how to cut lead came with three different tools; a knife, nippers and angle cutter.

Video showing how to cut lead with three different cutting tools

Once you’re happy that the leading is neat and finished you’re ready to join all the lead came together by Soldering Stained Glass

http://everythingstainedglass.com/stained-glass-makinghttp://everythingstainedglass.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cut-hard-angles-in-lead.jpg.pagespeed.ce_.yGWq_u62g_.jpghttp://everythingstainedglass.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/cut-hard-angles-in-lead.jpg.pagespeed.ce_.yGWq_u62g_-150x150.jpg2016-11-10T07:45:49+00:00Milly FrancesLead Came ConstructionStained Glass TutorialsBeginner,Cornerstone,Leading Up TechniqueSimple Instructions For Making Leaded Stained Glass
This is where making leaded stained glass really gets exciting! Once you have cut all your glass pieces out, the next step is to join them together using stained glass lead came. Students of my online lead came course really enjoyed the leading...Milly FrancesMillyFrancesmillyfrances@gmail.comAdministratorEverything Stained Glass

8 Comments Already

What a pleasure reading your mail that is loaded with such valuable information. What ever you have said , i tried and it works, I must master cutting profiles freehand. (pressure pressure). Cutting straight lines I am happy with. Thanks for your valuable information, looking forward to your next mail.

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About Me

I'm Milly Frances and I've been working with stained glass for over - yikes! - 20 years now, both as a professional artist and as a trained teacher. I also play 5-a side football (badly).
My biggest love is working alongside people early in their stained glass journey and giving them the confidence to find their own artistic direction.

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